18 January, 2014

While playing around with my new Nikon P520 camera, I came across this: A fairly big spider and a wasp, were fighting each other. At a time it looked like the spider got the wasp packed up. But then, all of a sudden, the wasp curled right around and managed to sting the spider. Seconds later it was all over. The wasp grabbed the almost death spider by its head and it looked like it tried to take it somewhere. Obviously, the spider was too heavy to be flown and the wasp dragged it around for a while (when I took the picture it was going backwards, up a vertical wall). But then the wasp succumbed too. It dumped the spider and tried to fly but it couldn't. A few minutes later it too was dead. What a life . . .

It was a nice, 70min flight. I knew it will be a bit turbulent and as usual, the W-NW wind did not disappoint. But I also knew what I have to do to make the flight enjoyable :D After taking off I climbed to 500m. There was still some turbulence so I went even higher. At about 700m I crossed the inversion layer. What a pleasure. With the turbulence gone, I could concentrate in taking some 50 odd pics. Below are a few samples. The flight was uneventful (just as I like it). However, with the sun getting higher and the wind stronger, I knew I will get a bit of shaking on the way down. Nothing major though. At about 300m I got into a broken thermal. Nothing major once again but for a man like me which hates roller-coasters, even a bit of turbulence is unwanted :D